


Expressions

by Nyxierose



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:17:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5421845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/pseuds/Nyxierose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a lot of ways to show love.</p><p>(Or, the 100 Ways To Say I Love You list worked through in 100 (mostly) unrelated ficlets.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. “Pull over.  Let me drive for awhile.”

**Author's Note:**

> Because I needed an ambitious project and the "100 Ways" list is making its way around Tumblr and... what the hell and why not.
> 
> Unrelated drabbles, MOSTLY fluff (no promises but I'll try), frequently AU and we'll see how far I get with this.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roadtrips with people you don't know that well are FUN... right??

Really, the problem is that Jess doesn't own a car and is absolutely  _terrified_ of flying. And normally that isn't a problem, normally she is quite content to stay in New York, but then Trish moves to fucking Chicago of all fucking places and that's a  _small_ problem but one Jess could work around. At least until the "your friend is in hospital and will be for a while" phone call. Goddammit.

How this led to Jess riding shotgun in a car owned and driven by a casual acquaintance, she's not entirely sure, but the last forty-eight hours of her life are kinda a blur and she's not really complaining about the details here.

What she knows is this - Luke is an absolute angel, willing to put his life on hold for a week for a girl he doesn't know all that well and willing to begin that with a twelve-hour drive and zero complaining. Normal people don't  _do_ things like that. And okay fine, this little adventure will almost  _definitely_ lead to the resolution of the sexual tension that defines their weird makeshift friendship, but still. But still.

"You okay?" he asks somewhere around hour four of the drive, first words he's said to her since they got out of the city.

"Yeah," she replies, lips curving into a half-smile. She's not - she's worried as hell and doing a terrible job of masking it - but she wants to try. Current situation's awkward enough, the last thing it needs is a sudden appearance of her overemotional bullshit.

Another few hours pass, and the quiet's killing her. She's used to people who talk, people who yell at bad drivers and people who notice patterns in the sky. Not people like him, not people who don't need to constantly communicate their feelings. It's nice, but god is it weird and she's not sure how to break the silence. Not sure if she even wants to, really. She's okay with being curled up in a ball and taking in the little things, like how Luke's car somehow smells like him and how he stays focused even when his right hand drifts to play with the radio. (Losing battle, the damned thing barely works and they're in some godforsaken part of western Pennsylvania where every station is playing the irritating sort of country music.) He's beautiful, and she just might fall for him if they survive this little adventure. In the unlikely event he still tolerates her existence a week from now, it's inevitable.

She stares at him, sees the tiredness in his eyes, and starts to worry a little bit. But this, at least, she can try to do something about.

“Pull over.  Let me drive for awhile.”

He turns his head towards her for a moment, and she's pretty sure there's a very quick eyeroll in there. "Do you even have a license, Jess?"

"I do. Promise. And I'm a surprisingly good driver and-"

"Next exit. That okay?"

She nods.

A few minutes later, in the parking lot of a gas station, they change positions. She adjusts everything slowly, stealing glances at her partner every so often, not even trying to be subtle. "You can rest," she says, reaching out and squeezing his hand. "It's just a few more hours, and you look like you need it."

They make it all the way across Michigan before she has to slam on the brakes to avoid a deer. Luke wakes suddenly, looks at her all worried again, and that's the moment she knows she's done for in the best way.


	2. "It reminded me of you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canon'verse and a kitten.

There's a strange mewing noise coming from the other side of the apartment door.

One of Jess's great strengths is that she's pretty hard to freak out, but even she's got limits. Animals in places they shouldn't be, for example. One of the best things about living in the city, or at least this part of it, is that stray animals are not a thing. Sure, you'll see a cat down an alley or something, but generally that's not a problem in apartment buildings. _Generally_. But when the hell has her life ever been normal?!

She hesitates a few moments longer than usual before opening the door, processing the high likelihood that the yowly creature awaiting her is _supposed_ to be there. Great. Okay, so the "I'm not an animal person" convo wasn't high on her priority list when she got tangled up with Luke again, but maybe it should've been. Now, though… now it's too late.

Sure enough, there's a kitten taking up as much space as it possibly can right underneath the good window. Fur and bones, almost unfortunate looking, but it's got big eyes and Jess can't help but kneel down and pick it up. Dammit, the little creature's kinda cute. With a little attention and care… dammit, this is the last thing she needs. She can barely take care of herself, she has accepted that fact, and yet she's feeling maternal instincts towards a couple pounds of noisy fluff. (Hormones, she swears. PMS is a vicious beast.)

Eventually, the furball falls asleep, and Jess knows she ought to put it down and leave it be but she can't. The feeling of soft fur under her fingers is _nice_ , and it's not like she's got anything better to do tonight.

(She always did worry about becoming a cat lady. She just didn't expect to have a boyfriend along for the ride.)

She's still there an hour later, curled up on the floor, when said boyfriend gets home. "You made friends," he says as he joins her, and the smile on his face is electric.

"You could've warned me," she mutters, leaning her head against his shoulder.

"Would've, if I'd planned it."

"So you _impulsively_ got a cat?" she laughs.

"It reminded me of you. Same eyes. And it needed a home and I thought… we can handle a cat. They're low-maintenance. And you don't have to-"

She shifts position and kisses him. "I'm fine with this, Luke. Still in shock, but fine. It's kinda cute, and we're already domestic as hell, and… I'm fine. I promise."

 


	3. "It's okay. I couldn't sleep anyway."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canon'verse, nightmares, and reassurances.

It's been three years and she still has nightmares sometimes.

World's a different place now, Jess reminds herself, and for the most part it's better. She's sorta doing the superhero thing again, albeit in a way that's decidedly more _her_. She can sometimes get through multiple days, once even a solid week, without flaring. Her important people are thriving - Trish's ratings have never been higher, and Malcolm just got accepted to grad school in Michigan. (It's gonna be weird not having him around to handle the public-relations-and-paperwork part of whatever the hell they're doing, but Jess figures she'll find a decent replacement _eventually_ and she can handle that shit on her own for a few months if she absolutely has to.) She's got her life as together as it's gonna get. She's fine… and yet once every week or two, she's anything but.

Normally, she toughs through it alone. Normally she's quiet, normally she slips out of bed and has her freakout in the bathroom, normally she makes herself a cup of tea and forces herself to breathe again and everything's okay in half an hour. The nights she can't go back to sleep, she deals with work stuff in the main room of the apartment until morning and takes a catnap later. She's got a routine for this, and half of that routine is that she never, _ever_ wakes her partner.

She's not scared, per say. Luke knows about the weird shit and Luke is as calm about the weird shit as it's possible for anyone to be. But he's got his own ghosts, and the last thing he needed at this point in his life was a thirtysomething girlfriend who's taking too goddamn long to get over her trauma and yet here she is anyways and she feels awful about it. So she keeps him out of it, tells him what happened in the morning but doesn't ask him to participate in the immediate crises. Least she can do, right?

Some nights, though… some nights those plans don't mean a damn thing.

She wakes up screaming and terrified to move, which is a fricking great combination of issues. There's no way out of this, and a certain corner of her brain is already thinking of apologies by the time she feels the mattress move and gentle hands anchor on her shoulders. Last time this happened was six months ago, and she's not too thrilled about a repeat.

"Breathe, Jess. Breathe. It's not real."

She tries, but it feels like desperate gasps after nearly drowning and her heart rate is on a similar tempo. "Sorry," she croaks, the first of a hundred times she'll say that one little word before she feels better.

They've had this conversation. When these episodes happen - and they do _happen_ , not with any sort of frequency but enough that there's a routine for them too - she overreacts and he barely says anything and it's just on the safe edge of counterproductive but harmless and they both hate it. Classic no-win scenario, and yet somehow one of the more relevant reasons that Luke is the best boyfriend ever (at least by Jessica's questionable standards). There's a _routine_ , dammit.

"It's okay," he shrugs, scary calm like always. "I couldn't sleep anyway."

Another few moments pass. She feels her body relax a little, enough, and she shifts and curls up as close as she can to him. In response, his arms wrap around her and he kisses her forehead, silent reminders that she's safe here. She's safe here, and she repeats that phrase over and over in her head because two years of this and it's still so damn weird.

"You're not just lying to make me feel better, are you?"

She feels him laugh, warm and real. "You know I don't do that, girl."

He doesn't, she remembers as her eyes close and she feels her tiredness take her. There's no bullshit in their relationship, whatever the hell they're even walking towards. If he says something, he means it. And if he says she's safe, then that's the truest thing in the world. Even the demons in her mind can't beat that.


	4. "Can I hold your hand?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some sort of human AU and a NYE party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's half an hour until midnight as I'm posting this and I'm hiding from a horde of loud teenagers with bad taste in music. Hopefully 2016 starts out better for you guys than it will for me.

New Year's Eve loses its appeal real quick when you don't fucking sleep in the first place.

Okay, fine, Jess is a sloth sometimes and Jess is prone to burying herself under blankets for solid _days_ if she doesn't have anything better to do. But normal hours? Hell no. Run until she's exhausted, run until she's dead on her feet and blanks out hard enough that her demons can't get her while she's not lucid enough to fight 'em off, and get back up and do the same damn thing over and over again.

So really, a yearly "holiday" that involves staying up until midnight is pointless as far as she's concerned. But unfortunately for her, the important people in her life have other ideas, and instead of drinking something nicer than usual in the safety of her apartment, she's going through that routine at a party and she's wearing goddamn uncomfortable heels.

(Screw social expectations. Next year, she _is_ staying in. She's safely in her thirties, nobody gives a fuck.)

She spends most of the party hiding in a corner, giving everyone who approaches her a death glare, and it works until she isn't the only person with that tactic. Works fine, as far as she's concerned, until a man sits down a safe distance from her without any sort of formality and she decides she doesn't mind at all. He's not trying to hit on her, he's not trying _anything_ really… throw in the fact that he's nice to look at, smooth dark skin and an inherent solidness to his presence, and she could be _very_ okay with this guy.

They sit in silence for a while, slowly drifting closer to take up less space. She starts staring, starts wondering who he is and why he's hiding. (She's got her reasons, a whole book of 'em. If she lives to be fifty, and she's not holding her breath there, she's gonna write a memoir. She doubts this guy's as screwed up as she is. She doubts that's even _possible_.)

Out of the blue, an idea. She was planning to keep her distance from people tonight, but suddenly she wants to be human, suddenly she _wants_. And for once, for once she's got a starting point that doesn't rely on her negative traits.

"Can I hold your hand?" she asks, hoping he'll notice she's even talking to him.

He reaches out, and he's warm and right next to her now and it hits her that what she really needs tonight is a friend. Not someone to fuck her against a wall, but someone to _see_ her. She could find that here.

"You okay?" he asks.

"I will be."

And maybe that's still a while from happening, but as she listens to the chaos of midnight, she squeezes his hand and wonders if this new year might be a new beginning after all…


End file.
